Enslaved, burned and beaten: police free 450 from Chinese brick factories
Pastor Dale Morgan
Enslaved, burned and beaten: police free 450 from Chinese brick factories*
· Children among captives forced to work for no pay
· Local officials accused of colluding with traffickers
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Saturday June 16, 2007
The Guardian
More than 450 slave workers - many of them maimed, burned and mentally
scarred - have been rescued from Chinese brick factories in an
investigation into illegal labour camps, it emerged yesterday.
The victims, including children as young as 14, were reportedly abducted
or tricked into labouring at the kilns, where they toiled for 16 to 20
hours a day for no pay and barely enough food to live.
According to the state media, they were beaten by guards and kept from
escaping by dogs. At least 13 died from overwork and abuse, including a
labourer who was allegedly battered to death with a shovel.
Such cruelty appears to have been commonplace and, until this week,
ignored by local governments intent on boosting economic growth at any cost.
Their plight was revealed by one of the biggest known police operations
in the country's history.
In the past week 35,000 police have inspected 7,500 kilns in the
countryside of Shanxi and Henan provinces, the state-run Xinhua news
agency reported. They have arrested 120 suspects and freed 468 slaves,
including 109 juveniles.
The results of this probe into the darkest corners of Chinese society
have shocked the nation. Since the first case was revealed on June 8,
newspapers and television broadcasts have been filled with images of the
wounded, emaciated and traumatised slaves. Some were so badly hurt they
had to be carried out on stretchers.
Their living conditions were appalling. According to local media they
were locked for years in a bare room with no bed or stove, allowed out
only to work in the red-hot kilns, from where they would carry heavy,
burning loads of newly fired bricks on their bare backs. Many were badly
scalded. Fifteen-minute meal-breaks consisted only of steamed buns and
cold water.
One of the labourers, 17-year-old Zang Wenlong, told a TV station that
the kiln where he worked for three months in Caosheng village in Shanxi
was a "prison". He said he had been abducted from a train station.
The huge police investigation was prompted by 400 parents of missing
youths, who posted a petition on the internet last week, accusing local
officials of ignoring their suspicions.
Yang Aizhi told Xinhua that she went looking for her 16-year-old son in
March after hearing that he might have been forced to work at a brick
factory.
In visits to dozens of kilns in Shanxi - a province famous for its coal
and heavy industry - she found children still in school uniform who were
pressed into hard labour.
President Hu Jintao and prime minister Wen Jiabao ordered an
investigation, compensation for victims and severe punishment for
traffickers and jailers. The leaders rose to power on a promise to
improve the conditions of those left behind by the country's breakneck
development.
But many commentators believe high-profile investigations only scratch
the surface of child labour, trafficking and slavery. With no free
media, independent courts or rival political parties, it is easy for
local officials to conspire with factory owners to ignore labour laws.
"If China really gave the media freedom, you would see stories like this
appearing all the time," said Qiao Mu, of Beijing Foreign Study University.
Internet chatrooms were buzzing with criticism of the local authorities.
"My feeling is that local officials and police benefit from the brick
industry and that's why these appalling things could happen," said one
post. "The boss and local gangsters are not the only criminals. The
courts should also sentence local officials who were bribed off," said
another.